2016 Goals One Month In

Feb 2, 2016

Since I’ve had some time to think about it…

Lots of folks put up their goals for the year in a timely manner.. at the beginning of the year. I’ve been a little swamped lately and have only been compiling my list in my mind if what the year ahead holds. Since it’s a couple days into February, I figured I might as well get it out there.

My List is as follows:

Keep hitting it hard on JavaScript. I’ve made good strides this year, largely eliminating jQuery from my list of needs, but there’s an infinitie amount more to go. I’m solid on DOM traversal and in browser UI interactions, but I’m going to aim for a more thorough mastery of objects and the language itself outside of a browser. I also plan on dipping a toe into ES6 and Node. Plenty to occupy me there.

I am going to contribute to an open source project, or at least go through the motions entailed in doing so.

I am going to get more comfortable with Git beyond the basics. Not being able to use it at my full time job is a real blocker when it comes to fully understanding all of its intracacies.

I am going to take the knowledge gained from my upcoming training in Adobe Analytics to really understand the implementation of a complex system of analytics on an enterprise scale and try to use that knowledge to serve smaller side projects I engage in moving forward.

I am going to take a quick spin of whatever JS framework seems to be at the forefront around the middle of the year. Perhaps a small side project to get a feel for the capabilities. Again, it’s not something I can really use at work, but it’s key to keep improving and trying to stay at the front of what’s current.

I am going to get more involved in the community. I have already submitted my first proposal for a conference talk, but I’d like to get a meetup or something similar going in St. Louis.

I am going to put more effort into this blog. Both in terms of actual content and design. It’s no secret that this is a lightly altered bare bones Jekyll theme. It was great to get me into the terminal and a basic understanding of static site generators, but it’s time to move it a bit further.

Along those lines, I’m playing with the idea of forking this site (to go through the process) and throwing a bunch of experimentation at that branch to practice any new techniques I pick up without fear of wrecking this version.

Lastly, I need to find a good side project that can allow me to make use of a lot of new things that are hard to use at my full time job. I have a few possibilities I’m eyeing, we’ll see how they develop..

Obviously, this list is purely professional. I have plenty of personal goals as well, but they are likely of little interest to anyone outside my family. I’m really looking forward to building on the enormous growth I experienced in 2015 and hope that the coming year will see similar leaps in ability. I just have to keep my head down and keep an eye on the long term goal…